Jacob L. Klein appears in a jail mugshot.
Grim new details have emerged in an upstate New York murder case where a Virginia man allegedly stalked his victim before the slaying occurred. Authorities say that the victim had recently married the suspect’s long-ago ex-girlfriend.
Jacob L. Klein, 40, stands accused of murder in the second degree over the brutal killing of 35-year-old physician assistant Philip L. Rabadi. The victim, authorities say, was “bound, slashed and mutilated” in his own home in New Scotland, N.Y. on April 13, 2022.
According to court documents recently obtained by Albany, N.Y.-based NBC affiliate WNYT, the grieving widow, Elana Radin, told police she received a concerning email from the defendant just before she and Rabadi were married in September 2021.
Details regarding what, exactly, disturbed her in that message from Klein are not clear at present. The claim about the email, however, offers a window into the evidence used by law enforcement to quickly develop Radin’s ex as the lone suspect in the fatal home invasion.
Additional evidence includes documents from an Enterprise Rent-A-Car location in Albany that contains a record of a white truck being rented to “Jacob Klein” on April 11, 2022. The license plate for that same white truck was caught by an Albany plate reader on the morning Rabadi was killed. A neighbor’s statement to police would then tie the truck to just outside the scene of the crime.
According to those documents cited by the TV station, the neighbor in question described a man of Klein’s height walking toward Rabadi’s home just after 7:00 a.m. The man, the neighbor said, was carrying some papers, wearing dark clothes, and wearing a surgical mask.
“[O]dd, because he was not dressed like a construction worker,” she told police, noting that there was construction occurring at the house next door–with workers heading inside the property.
The victim was found laying face down on his garage floor, WNYT previously reported. His jacket was pulled down, his hands were tied behind his back, and his shoes were off. Rabadi’s father and Radin arrived at the home to meet with police after the deceased man uncharacteristically did not show up for his shift at the hospital where the recently-wed couple both worked as physician assistants.
Rabadi’s father was told to stay outside by one deputy on the scene but went in the garage by himself and began screaming.
Inside the house, police found two bathroom sinks pouring water. One was overflowing. The other had blood on the faucet.
Authorities claim to have come to the conclusion that Klein was at risk of leaving the country. After somehow making his way through Tennessee, police say, he drove back to Virginia the day after the murder. The defendant was arrested by Virginia and Tennessee state troopers on April 15, 2022 and booked into an Abingdon, Va. jail, before he was extradited back to the Empire State. Authorities say he is represented by counsel and keeping mum.
Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple said Radin was unaware that she and her husband had been stalked in the days leading up to the crime. Rabadi is believed not to have known his alleged killer at all.
Klein was formally indicted by a grand jury on Monday.
The Albany community is reeling over the tragic loss. Rabadi attended Albany Medical College, where he studied to be a physician assistant, and his friends and family are currently in the process of raising the money necessary to permanently endow a legacy fund in the 2015 graduate’s name.
[image via mugshot]